


drunk on rose water

by transstevebucky



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety Attacks, Bucky Barnes Has Cats, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Marijuana, Nonbinary Bucky Barnes, Other, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Past Riley/Sam Wilson, Past Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trans Sam Wilson, Trans Steve Rogers, Wings, mlm author, so much baking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 05:55:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12205197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transstevebucky/pseuds/transstevebucky
Summary: “So your wings,” Sam asked, “does that make you, like, a cupid? Like, shoot me with an arrow, make me fall in love, that kind of a deal?”Bucky stared blankly at him where they sat at the kitchen island. It was hard to take them seriously as a threat when they were wearing a shirt decorated only with badly cropped pictures of kittens. So many of them were so ugly. In a hideously adorable sort of way.“Why’s everyone ask that?” Bucky sighed, after a moment, “I have all the dating reputation of a corpse. The last person I dated died in 1958, becauseI haven’t datedin this century.”Sam's got friends. He's got a lot of friends. The problem is, none of them are like Bucky, and none of them are living with him.





	drunk on rose water

**Author's Note:**

> i'm so happy i got to write this, and i couldn't have done it without [the incredible artist who drew the pieces for this fic!](http://liquidlightning.tumblr.com/)
> 
> lyrics at the start taken from little mix's touch
> 
> some trigger warnings for the fic, just in case:
> 
> - **discussions of trans-related issues (dysphoria, packing, genitalia mentions, and confirmation surgeries), also discussions of not dealing with these feelings or viewing them as a big deal**  
>  - **discussions of period-typical homophobia (raids, murders, talked about in the forties. scene begins with the phrase '"Mmm, what's this?")**
> 
> - **food (bucky and sam both bake a lot to deal with stress)**  
>  - **ptsd/anxiety, and associated symptoms (including flashbacks and being "caught up" on feelings, feelings of worthlessness)**  
>  - **descriptions of injuries, including wrist injuries, blood, and broken bones, and with that the understanding the people involved aren't being careful with themselves**  
>  - **sexual content; very very minor, happens offscreen, but some references to sexual actions etc**  
>  - **very very minor character death, and canon compliant in that sense (riley died before the fic begins but sam still feels grief and distress about this, in case mourning upsets you)**

 

_just a touch of your love is enough_

_to knock me off my feet all week_

_don't you keep it all to yourself._

 

+++

 

Here’s the thing: when Sam wanted to get back into the whole destroying governments thing, he hadn’t realised it came with the bonus of hunting down a deadly assassin.

 

He hadn’t realised it’d come with said assassin having moved into his home while he’d been on a wild goose chase for months, and he hadn’t much thought about the fact none of Steve’s friends could be considered even close to emotionally stable.

 

He’d be lying if he said he hated any of it. But, lord, his life was so much easier before he was dealing with super soldiers eating him out of house and home.

 

+++

 

Sam should have never spoken to Steve Rogers. Even with his Impeccable Thigh Muscles, it wasn’t worth all this.

 

Maybe he should have looked the other way. Getting hit by a car, even, might have been easier than this.

 

He really wishes he hadn’t let Bucky have a key, all those months ago. Maybe then they would have taken a hint and not be bleeding out at his front door.

 

( _Their_ front door, he thinks with heavy regret.)

 

“The fifth time this week,” he hisses, pulling Bucky through the entryway and depositing them on the sofa. He’s going to be scrubbing blood out of the cushions for weeks, but it’s better than the possibility of them slipping off the bathtub rim and cracking their skull on the way down. He’s only letting that happen once. “Fifth!”

 

“It’s fine,” Bucky insists, and their wrist makes a horrific crunching noise as they rotate it, blood spitting from a slice at the round of their palm, “oh, yikes.”

 

Aside from the whole almost-handless thing they’ve got going on, they’re walking with a limp, metal hand pressed to their ribs to hold them in place, and one of their wings (the one that’s mostly golden-white as opposed to russet brown) is bent at an awkward angle.

 

“You can’t keep hunting nazis with no regard for your own health,” Sam says, and tugs the box of needles and thread out of his jeans. Bucky’s the only one who lets him do this, who trusts him enough to let him stitch their injuries back together. He wishes he didn’t have to, that Bucky could step foot into a hospital without going cold with fear, but. These are the cards he’s been dealt and reluctantly taken.

 

“Am I dead?” Bucky asks, and watches Sam with a soft smile twitching at their lips. By all reason, they should be wincing, gone pale with pain, but instead they look flushed with life. Fucking asshole.

 

“Being alive doesn’t mean you’re taking care of yourself,” Sam huffs, sits down. The wound on Bucky’s wrist is thin but deep, bone visible through the gore. At least the bones are setting right. He hopes. “That’s baseline, Barnes, you know that.”

 

“Baseline’s enough on a mission.” Bucky’s right wing (the not-broken one) twitches, annoyed. “Steve’s worse off.”

 

Sam’s stomach drops at the thought; Steve gone limp and lifeless all over again, but decides that he’ll worry about it later. If Bucky were worried, he wouldn’t be home yet. He’d be sat at Steve’s bedside with a broken wrist and self-loathing gone bone-deep.

 

“Steve’s always worse off,” he says instead of _can’t you understand this fucking hurts me?_ “Dude needs to see a therapist. Or five.”

 

Bucky sighs, leaning back, and the needle in Sam’s grip twitches as he’s sewing Bucky’s skin back together. “I keep _telling_ him.”

 

“I know,” Sam says, pressing his fingers to Bucky’s scraped palms, “I know.”

 

+++

 

Sam had spent a lot of time on the road, after SHIELD’s collapse. A lot of aching limbs had been less from punching fascists and more from sleeping in the passenger seat of a car Steve was driving. (Guy has no idea how to use turn signals, apparently).

 

Coming home, he’d expected to turn on his lights and have to go through his refrigerator and throw everything out, double-bagged. He hadn’t been expecting Bucky Barnes, long-haired, wings draped over Sam’s sofa, gun in their lap.

 

(“Your security’s shit,” they’d said, as an opening line, while Sam had just. Stared. Six months. On the road, looking for that asshole, tearing down Hydra cells with muddied hands, and they’d been sat in his home, “I upped it.”)

 

Eight months after finding the Winter Soldier sat in his living room, he’s got three different sets of body wash in his shower, shelves all over his walls covered in books, and painted nails, never left one color long enough to chip.

 

“Pink’s nice on you,” Nat says, fiddling with his fingers, “looks good.”

 

Bucky’s watching them both from next to the window, twitching at every movement outside. “I’m trying to do my job, here!”

 

“You’re trying to catch sight of the hot neighbour,” Sam snorts, “you’re useless.”

 

Bucky hisses something unintelligible like _not my fault they jog shirtless_ , and Nat makes a sound half-laughter and half-exhaustion. Sam wonders if she’s slept at all the last couple of days, if she’s slept since he last saw her, hanging upside down from a rafter shooting nazis through their skulls.

 

“I just,” Bucky tries, and then softly sighs, “I really want to make out with them.”

 

“You’re a mess,” Sam tells them, warmth deep in his gut that he’s trying desperately to ignore, trying not to name, “Steve would be ashamed.”

 

Bucky narrows their eyes, shifts position, wings unfurling and fluttering back, smooth against their back. The pale feathers glint in the sunlight from the window, and the sight of it makes Sam’s breath catch, heavy in his throat.

 

“Steve cried when Peggy kissed him for the first time,” they say, and that does sound about right, “Steve doesn’t know anything, ever.”

 

Sam thinks about Steve, the way he holds himself, shoulders drawn tight and smiles barely there, only looks like he comes out of himself whenever Peggy, Bucky, Angie or Sam himself are there. Bucky’s probably right, which is something Sam’s never telling them, because every time Sam says they’re smart they get this look on their face like they’ve never heard anything better and it is. Problematic.

 

“You’re not totally wrong,” he allows, and Bucky grins, all white-teeth and vibrating with energy, “I didn’t say you were _right_.”

 

“Barnes is a mess,” Nat says, and pulls a little bottle of blue nail polish from -it’s probably not worth thinking about, “you know they’ll think that means they are.”

 

“Lies,” Bucky says, but their eyes are all shiny and their fingers are trembling, and it’s so fucking endearing, so different to how they were when Sam first started to know them, that it’s impossible to be annoyed by it.

 

Sam’s stomach feels warm, weighted down, this comfort he didn’t think he’d have again after he watched Riley fall.

 

He didn’t know what flirting back with Steve would mean, all those months ago, how it’d change his life and how he moved around the world, like coming back from tour all over again but in a viscerally different way. He didn’t realise that in becoming allies with a supersoldier he’d gain a group of friends who only wanted to protect and love him with such intensity that sometimes it scared him, just a little. He wouldn’t tell Bucky that, because if he did they’d get this look in their eyes like he’d said something sweet and nice, and. He can’t have his reputation as Aloof and Too Good eviscerated.

 

“Oh!” Bucky says, suddenly, and their wings fly upwards, trembling, “they’re running!”

 

“This reminds me of that time you fell flat on your face looking at Sharon’s ass,” Sam tells Nat, and she flushes pink, freckles across her nose going darker.

 

“I’m a useless lesbian, we know this.”

 

“I want to bed them,” Bucky sighs, dreamily, actually putting their chin in their metal hand. Sam’s one hundred percent sure that if he looked he’d see heart eyes.

 

“No one even says that any more,” Sam tells them, and stands. Nat whines when he shoves her legs off his thighs, and he pats her on the head as an apology.

 

Bucky turns to watch Sam, grin wide, double chin showing in relief with the golden light through the (now closed, since Hot Neighbour has officially run out of sight) curtains, and Sam’s chest flutters horrifyingly.

 

“I want to bed you,” Bucky says, voice gone all honey-smooth, the way it does when they’re sweet talking old Mr Jeffords at the candy store, “I’d love it.”

 

“Fuck off.” Sam swallows, punches them right in the shoulder, “I absolutely hate you.”

 

“No, you don’t,” Bucky says, as a wing reaches out and tries to tug Sam into a hug.

 

“No,” Sam sighs, face pressed into their neck, “I don’t.”

 

+++

 

See, Sam’s a good person. He’s kind and compassionate and honestly really beautiful, and all of that amounts to Not Deserving This.

 

It’s six in the morning, for Christ’s sake. He hasn’t gotten up this early since he was on the road with Steve, and that was only because Steve doesn’t understand subtlety at all and kept twitching at every car that drove past their shitty motel.

 

“Are you,” he asks, scratching at his side, wondering why he ever let Bucky move in at all, “making a penis cake.”

 

“I’m getting rid of my gay angst,” Bucky says, pushing the mould into shape with their metal fist. It looks surprisingly gentle, even though Sam can tell from the line of their shoulders they haven’t slept properly in a few days.

 

“I don’t think fixating on dick is helping with the gay angst thing,” Sam tells them, shouldering past to get to the coffee maker (courtesy of Steve, because he’d broken their last one), “last time I fixated on dick it cost me twenty thousand dollars and three weeks of continual bed rest.”

 

“That’s on you,” Bucky says, grinning, and Sam averts his gaze, focuses on the fact there’s a lot of. Detail. To this cake. There are blue veins. Sam has never wished for the end more. “The rest of us just steal dicks.”

 

“Steve’s still pissed at you for that.” Sam takes a sip of the coffee, doesn’t even care it’s gone a little cold. Leans against the counter with a sigh. “You know he takes pride in his collection. And you didn’t even used it! You just stuck it to the ceiling with glitter glue.”

 

“He has a shelf,” Bucky informs him, and Sam snorts, “it’s in his bedroom, I helped put it up.”

 

“A packer shelf?”

 

“A packer shelf!” Bucky confirms, so fucking chipper that it’s honestly a little disgusting.

 

Sam can only deal with so much before nine am, and watching Bucky Barnes use their Weapon of Mass Destruction to make a penis cake isn’t one of them. Upside is, they look fucking beautiful like this, countertop lights on, sunrise glinting through the windows. It lights their face up purple and blue, orange sliding over their nose.

 

He takes another hard gulp of his coffee. Desperately ignores the fact these feelings aren’t going away.

 

“D’you know if Peggy’s called?” He asks, after a second of watching Bucky slowly mix the batter. They’re probably making a second batch, just in case. Which is something Sam didn’t even know happened, in all honesty, but.

 

“Nah,” Bucky says, “she’s on that weekend with Angie. They’re probably doing tourist-y, gay things, like wearing flannel and going to art museums.”

 

“Stop stereotyping them,” Sam chides, even though Peggy had sent him a selfie of her and Angie doing exactly that last week. “Nat would rip your hair out of your scalp.”

 

“She has a closet just for flannel. She hasn’t got a leg to stand on.”

 

Bucky shrugs, nibbles at the corner of one of their nails. While Sam’s are never chipped, Bucky’s always gnawing away at theirs, so they’re constantly cracked or split, nail polish getting caught in their feathers as it falls.

 

Speaking of. “Why’ve you got your wings in?”

 

Bucky huffs. “Last time I had them out while I was baking I ended up dunking the tip of one in it.”

 

“Doesn’t count if it’s just the tip,” Sam says, cheesy grin stretching over his face.

 

“Hey, Sam?” Bucky asks, voice bright, “I fucking hate you!”

 

+++

 

If Eight-Months-Ago Sam Wilson told him that the Winter Soldier was a hardcore stoner, he’d probably laugh in your face.

 

Eight months ago Sam Wilson was a fucking fool, though. Present-day Sam Wilson knows the truth of it, which is that Bucky Barnes gets high when they get bored, and also just because. The first time it’d happened, Sam’d expected Steve to get high-and-mighty from watching it.

 

Instead, he’d perfectly rolled his own, stolen Bucky’s, and shoved both in his mouth at the same time.

 

So Sam’s got stoner friends. Which is just. Fantastic.

 

“I am,” Bucky says, flopping into Sam’s lap, “ _very_ high.”

 

“You were meant to keep an eye on them.” Sam calls to Steve from the couch.

 

Steve peers around the door, eyes red-rimmed, and shrugs. “Whatever they want to do, I’m not about to stop them.”

 

“You should,” Sam sighs, “look at them! They probably had, like, two tiny joints, if that, and they’re a fucking disaster.”

 

“Sam, c’mon! It’s fine! They just get tired and touch-starved anyway.” Steve says, at the same time Bucky tucks their face into Sam’s neck and grumbles “ _you’re_ tiny!”

 

“Least I’m not a lightweight,” Sam grunts, poking a finger into Bucky’s chubby hip. He’s sort of amazed, actually, that despite the fact Bucky’s huge, really, over 6 foot and edging towards 250 pounds, and with the added advantage of a knockoff super serum, they still can’t really handle a lot of weed.

 

“I’m leaving!” Steve says, and doesn’t leave any time at all for Sam to interject and beg to be saved from the mess of a person Bucky becomes when they’re high. The door shuts and locks in the time Sam manages even to wriggle up a little.

 

Fucking asshole. Sam’s going to put green dye in his shampoo next time he stays over.

 

“I’m not a fucking lightweight,” Bucky hisses, and nips insistently at Sam’s shoulder, “I’m fat!”

 

“That’s,” Sam sighs, pushes a finger into the softness of Bucky’s belly, “not at all what I meant, actually.”

 

“Bein’ fat ain’t bad, though.” Bucky nods, serious, eyebrows pulled together. Sam has never met anyone who gets like this when they’re high. “It’s good, and cute, and hot, and… Soft.”

 

“I know, Barnes,” Sam mumbles, “you haven’t got to convince me. But I was trying to say that you can’t hold your drugs for shit.”

 

“‘Scuse you,” Bucky glares, shifting in place and nearly rolling off Sam’s legs onto the carpeted floor, “Hydra said I was great at holding my narcotics.”

 

Sam jabs them in the ribs, once and hard, stomach rolling with the thought of it. He knows, obviously, what Hydra did, through all those talks with them, that Bucky’s frankly lucky to be alive. He’d just rather not joke about it. It’s fine Bucky does, because everyone copes differently, but. He doesn’t want to hear it. The one and only time he’d tried to joke about Riley he’d vomited on his favourite shirt and then had a panic attack.

 

“Sorry.” Bucky allows, and then presses a kiss to Sam’s cheek, wet and disgusting. “You’re all… Hard. Muscular. S’nice.”

 

“Thought you said being fat was hot?” Sam asks, gentle, curls his fingers in Bucky’s soft hair, the smell of smoke and weed floating up to him with the action. He only doesn’t gag through his incredible willpower. And, unfortunately, the fact he’s so immune to it by now.

 

Bucky really does get high a lot.

 

“It is,” Bucky agrees, “but, like, I’m gay, not made of standards.”

 

“You must have some standards if you like cuddling with me,” Sam says, trying to shrug, but completely ladened down by Bucky’s heavy weight. “Ugh, why are you like this?”

 

“Trauma,” Bucky says, sweetly, and then bites on Sam’s jaw, hard. No fucking boundaries, he swears. “Also, standards don’t cover it. You’re out of this world.”

 

“Uh huh.” Sam deadpans, “I’m clearly superior.”

 

Bucky doesn’t respond with words, just nips all over Sam’s shoulder and collarbone with a gentle mouth, like a kitten.

 

Actually, they’re so astoundingly like a cat that it freaks Sam out sometimes. Like the time he walked into the kitchen to find them crouching on the table, rearranging their guns at such a weird angle it had to have hurt.

 

Sam has no idea why they’re friends. It’s not like he’s getting anything out of it besides emotional support and companionship, and, like, baked goods. And rent.

 

“You’re so beautiful,” Bucky says, breath warm on Sam’s skin. The words alone make his stomach clench. “It’s… A microaggression against me, specifically.”

 

“Ha ha,” Sam responds, voice flat, “you’re so funny!”

 

Bucky sighs, presses a kiss to Sam’s shoulder, and shoves away. “You’re useless.”

 

“Yeah,” Sam says, thinking of the warm tug in his gut every time he looks at them, about the fact he would truly do anything for them, “yeah, I am.”

 

+++

 

Sam had been recovering from top surgery when Steve had come out of the ice with Peggy.

 

He’d been loopy from pain meds and exhausted and fighting off infection, and the happiest he’d ever fucking been. A literal weight off his chest.

 

He will admit, now, that the reason he got a little attached to Steve so quickly after meeting him may have been the fact Sam watched a lot of his interviews when he was gross and trying to be Not At All Sick.

 

(Sam will also retain Steve’s shoulders-to-hips ratio is made for a little lusting over. Sam was just. Really fucking gay that day. He won’t be held accountable for his feelings in this matter.)

 

Before his medication haze, his most in-depth exposure to Captain America and his Howling Commandos had been about all those nazi-killing missions in the war. Best tactician in the war, he’d been told, even if he’d always mostly focused on the fact Steve’s body had changed so fucking incredibly with the serum.

 

Trans privilege, Steve had told him one night, voice low and grumbling.

 

Sam had punched him in the shoulder.

 

Anyway, point being: Sam hadn’t realised exactly what a reckless piece of shit Steve Rogers truly was.

 

Captain America was hailed for bravery and courage, for long-standing support of the forces, for justice and victory.

 

Steve Rogers was a 5’4 squirt who used trash can lids as shields, who threw himself out of buildings to avoid conversations, and a man who fell apart when Bucky Barnes fell off the train.

 

He is, also, such a terrible cheat at Monopoly that it makes Sam physically nauseous.

 

Fuck being a master tactician. He should be kicked in the teeth for his crimes.

 

“You’re shitting me,” Bucky’s saying, flicking at Steve’s chosen piece; a tiny little shield replica, from the Avengers version of the game. “Like fuck did you roll that.”

 

Steve smiles, innocent, and Sam averts his gaze out of rage. If he looks at him right now, he might have to burn a hole in his brand new carpet. “But Captain America doesn’t know how to lie.”

 

Nat snorts. “Remember that time you told Rumlow there was an agent just so you could put a slit in his bag so everything would fall out and he’d have to evac?”

 

Steve shrugs. “Damn nazis.”

 

Sam sighs. Bucky chews on a piece of candy Peggy’d set up before her and Steve’s girlfriend had snuck in, stole most of it, and retreated to the bedroom. Peggy laughs humorlessly.

 

Steve continues on with faking rolls and taking too much money from the bank under the guise of tax rebates, and Bucky slowly gets more and more high and curls themself more tightly to Sam’s side. Their wings flutter behind them like a slowly-deepening brown halo, and Sam avoids looking at them and tells himself he doesn’t like them. That no matter how gorgeous they are it’s not worth finding feathers everywhere.

 

Sam regrets ever insisting this be a thing. None of them are adult enough to be able to play a game like this without resorting to various forms of sabotage after a few rounds of the board. He can’t believe he still lets this happen, after three months of bi-weekly games.

 

(He does use it as an excuse to drink a little more than usual, to lean heavier against his friends so he can’t be caught up on it, but. He’s not telling anyone else that.)

 

“You’re such a stoner,” Peggy sighs, and tugs a hand through Bucky’s tangled hair. She’s been mostly drinking wine and nuzzling close to Nat for the evening, dumping her feet in Steve’s lap whenever she wants to change position. She’s the one who’s actually winning, and Sam has a hunch she’s probably cheating, too. She’s just better at it.

 

“Mhm,” Bucky smiles, eyes slitting open. Sam’s pretty sure they’re going to doze off, right here, stretched in Sam’s lap. “It’s fun.”

 

“A disaster.” Nat tells them. Her voice is monotone, but there’s a grin in her eyes, in the curve of her mouth.

 

“Aw, let them live,” Steve says, and uses the distraction to pocket more fake money. “They deserve a break after everything.”

 

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees, “including getting to win at Monopoly. Stop fucking cheating, asshole.”

 

Steve, at least, has the decency to go pink and put the fistfuls of paper money from his pocket  into the middle of the board.

 

                                                                       

  


+++

 

Sam’s not oblivious. He’s _not,_ no matter what Nat says and what Steve (heavily) implies.

 

He knows the way Bucky looks at him. He knows he likes them. He knows it’d be easy to fall in love with them. He knows the way Bucky’s shoulders go soft when they see a neighbor cat on their porch. He knows (intimately) the warmth of their skin through denim, through sweatpants and bandages and he knows the way their metal hand feels on the back of his neck.

 

He knows it’d be easy to fall in love with them. And that’s the problem.

 

Because four years ago, his life plan had revolved around Riley and getting out of the force, of having a picket fence and a dog. Of adopting and training pets as therapy animals. Of getting to wake up, hand over Riley’s scarred hip, knowing (violently, achingly), that he was loved, and good, and that the love he got was deserved.

 

But he let Riley get hit. He let him fall. And he knows what forgiveness feels like on the back of his tongue, but it falls bitter at his feet.

 

Sam’s got a lot of friends. He’s got a lot of ability to hold his mistakes back. He knows how to handle bad days.

 

The problem is, none of his friends are like Bucky, and none of them live with him.

 

Bucky Barnes makes not falling in love too fucking difficult.

 

In all honesty, it’s ruining his life.

 

+++

 

It’s not that Sam hates his friends. It’s that they’re all evil and out to get him killed, whether through stress ulcer or making him go on dawn-lit jogs.

It’s so cold his nipples are drawn up tight even in his long-sleeved shirt (one he’d stolen from Steve, months back, with a cute little bisexual pride symbol on the pocket). He doesn’t even want to think about the temperature. Somehow knowing makes it worse.

 

“You’re the worst,” his breath is coming so shallow his vision’s going dark. Fucking Christ. He’s never running with Peggy again. “I said Steve was the worst but that was a lie. It’s you. You’re the evil one.”

 

Peggy jogs in place, perfectly curled hair shining with sunlight, not sweat. Sam feels sweat dripping from places he didn’t know existed. Her constant perfection is annoying anyway. Now, when he’s still half asleep (jogging wakes you up his fucking ass), it’s like getting a root canal.

 

“Maybe if you acknowledged your feelings it wouldn’t be this way, darling,” she says, like that has. Fucking anything to do with it.

 

So he likes Bucky. So he _maybe_ has a crush. So he’s got sketches from Steve in his drawer because the way he’d captured their wings had been so fucking beautiful he’d cried. So he’s… Forgotten his point. He’s fine. He’ll get over it. It’s nothing.

 

“Jogging isn’t a healing power,” Sam says, and nudges his face into her shoulder. She still, somehow, smells like rose jam and blueberries, “it’s killing me. It’s personally helping me vacate the earth.”

 

Peggy hums, sits, takes Sam with her. Sam only leans against her because the alternative is laying down, and he doesn’t know if he’d be able to get up again. He really is exhausted.

 

They sit for a few minutes, breathing slowing, before she speaks, “I think Steve’s going to the therapist.”

 

Sam jerks in shock. “Really? Steve? Steve ‘emotions are illegal and I treat them through jumping out of buildings’ Steve?”

 

“Yeah,” Peggy says, and picks at a blade of grass, “I. Suggested it. He’s been having more and more panic attacks, lately, and I think it’s… Because of Bucky. Or… Reading more about it, going to all those bases on his off time. He blames himself. And he shouldn’t. Barnes can take care of themself.”

 

“Bucky goes to therapy three times a week and group twice a month,” Sam tells her, and she nods.

 

“I know. And Steve knows, too, I think. He has a lot of guilt. And then there’s the fact he’s treating his dysphoria like it’s -nothing, nonexistent. It hurts, seeing him in pain.”

 

“You should make him go to a center,” Sam says, “or at least make sure he actually wears his packers instead of using them as decoration.”

 

Peggy grins, sharp-teeth. “But that’s so much fun!”

 

“I hate you and your design choices,” he jabs her once in the ribs. “But, uh. I’m glad he has you, you know?”

 

“Sam…” Her voice goes tight, like it does before she cries, and Sam’s chest aches at the thought. “You have him, too, you know?”

 

“Yeah,” he says, and thinks about those months he’d been in love with Steve so fucking painfully it’d burned him up inside, “just not quite the same. It’s… Easier, at least.”

 

“You’re allowed to talk about it,” she tells him, “falling for Steve… Hurts. A lot. I understand. You’re allowed to feel pain about it, even angry. All of the things you’re feeling… About Steve, about Barnes- shut up, don’t give me that look, it’s difficult, but if anyone deserves better it’s you.”

 

Sam doesn’t speak. Digs his fingers into the dirt, and they come away wet with mud.

 

Peggy takes a shuddering breath, and ghosts a kiss to his cheek. He doesn’t have to see to know it’s left a mark. “You’ll find love again, Sam. Just because you couldn’t have it with Riley doesn’t mean you won’t get it ever again. And… you got over Steve. I’m sure, if you wanted, you could get over Barnes, too. _If_ you wanted.”

 

Sam’s stomach throbs, familiar nausea rising into his throat. Every mention of Riley feels like a twist in his gut, like a sword being slowly pushed through his vital organs. “I,” he tries, and gets choked up, “thanks, Peggy.”

 

“Of course,” she says, soft and sweet, and kisses him on the cheek, “what good was spending seventy years in the ice with a supersoldier if it didn’t give me perspective?”

 

When she helps him up, his stomach feels lighter, but his lungs burn with every step.

 

He knows he should take his own advice, but avoiding his feelings has worked so well in this area for so long.

 

                                                                          

 

+++

 

Steve’s on a mission.

 

Per Bucky’s anxious lifestyle, this essentially means having Sam's home become a giant nest of blankets and pillows, and the smell of freshly baked scones at all hours.

 

“You know he’ll be fine,” Sam had tried telling them, and Bucky had looked him in the eye and their lip had trembled, and. Sam is only one man. He’s not made for this.

 

“One time, in the war, Steve laid across a tank and threw a grenade in the opening at the top.” Their voice is devoid of emotion. The Dealing With Steve Rogers default, Sam’s found, is trying not to think about anything he does.

 

“Jesus.” Sam sighs. “Yeah, it’s fair you’re scared.”

 

It doesn’t help, but at least they occasionally pop up from their pile of soft, warm sheets to make cocoa, or show Sam a video about little paralysed kittens.

 

And then there’s this.

 

It’s three days into the mission, and Sam’s barely holding back from gnawing at his own nails and pacing from the lack of information on Steve’s safety.

 

"Draw me," Bucky says, and Sam glances up to find them lounging like Kate Winslet in Titanic, "C'mon. It doesn't have to be good."

 

"I don't know how to draw," Sam tries, even if it's a lie. He's spent enough time practising with Steve that even if he didn't know the skills and the theory (he does) he could at least make a passable attempt at a human being. And he’s spent enough time looking at Bucky lately that he knows them blind.

 

"You do," Bucky shrugs, and pulls their hair up into a bun. "Nat says everyone knows how to do everything, to an extent."

 

Nat should shut up, Sam thinks privately, but sits down and positions the sketchbook Bucky throws at him in his lap. "It won't be good."

 

"Sure it will." Bucky shrugs, and swallows, lets their wings billow behind them, stretch up and out into a crested point. "You're doing it."

 

Sam really isn’t a good artist. If it’ll take his mind off Steve and his suicidal tendencies, though, he’ll deal with it.

 

Bucky’s lounging, legs thrown over the edge of the sofa, blanket tucked under their head, wings draped like silk. They’d spent an hour yesterday brushing their fingers through them and tugging out bent feathers, and then conditioning them lovingly in the garden (since the last time Bucky’d tried to wash them in the shower they’d broken Sam’s favourite shampoo).

 

Their hair’s a rats nest. Sam tries, in kind and polite fashion, to make it look beautiful and silky, even if it’s not true to reality.

 

He’s just sketching out the soft curve of Bucky’s hip and stomach (a slight sliver of skin visible between their pants and their shirt), when Bucky looks at them and sighs.

 

“What?” He’s sort of terrified he’s done something wrong.

 

Their cheeks flush pink. “Nothing,” they try, but Sam looks at them and they visibly give in, “you’re, uh. Beautiful, you know that? You got any idea what you look like? Sun behind you, golden like a halo, skin so soft and sweet. I just. You’re gorgeous, Sammy, it’s not fair.”

 

Sam swallows and is deeply glad he doesn’t blush. “Bucky.”

 

“Yeah?” Their voice is so gentle, so fucking soft, like they’re terrified of what Sam’s going to say.

 

“You’re one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever known,” he tells them, and smudges a little at the sketchbook, so lovingly drawn, “and that’s the truth.”

 

Sam opts to leave Bucky’s blush out of the sketch, but he thinks about it for a long time.

 

+++

 

For a month after Bucky’d moved in, Sam had skirted around the wings question like a pit of snakes. It wasn’t that he felt awkward. It was just. He wasn’t entirely sure how to address it. (They were ever-present, unless Bucky was on a mission, or doing something intricate, like baking. Apparently keeping them tucked up hurt? Sam hadn’t wanted to pry. It felt rude.)

 

It was only a month and a half into Bucky being all settled in that Sam actually got up the willpower to put the question forward. He’s denied since that it was because of all the fucking horrible moulting, but that was, admittedly, at least ninety percent of the reason for asking.

 

“So your wings,” Sam had asked, “does that make you, like, a cupid? Like, shoot me with an arrow, make me fall in love, that kind of a deal?”

 

Bucky had stared blankly at him where they’d sat at the kitchen island. It was hard to take them seriously as a threat when they were wearing a shirt decorated with badly cropped pictures of kittens on. So many of them were so ugly. In a hideously adorable sort of way.

 

“Why’s everyone ask that?” Bucky had sighed, after a moment, “I have all the dating reputation of a corpse. The last person I dated died in 1958, because I _haven’t dated_ in this century.”

 

Sam, from that moment on, had asked questions whenever he wanted, because Bucky didn’t seem to mind. The same way Sam didn’t mind when Bucky asked if Steve had to take testosterone, too, (no, apparently, the fucking lucky asshole had been super-serumed into transition).

 

The one thing he hasn’t asked, though, even after all this time, is why the wings change colour.

 

Bucky’s wings, at the start, had been pearlescent, almost, giving off rays of light with every movement, like shattered glass. White with feathers of golden-yellow peppered throughout. Untouched and clean and beautiful.

 

Their wings now, however, are golden-brown, russet-toned. Almost chocolate in some lights. Stunning. Like soft skin and those highlighters Bucky’s got stacked up in their closet. The ones that they barely use.

 

He doesn’t want to ask. He’s afraid of what the answer might be.

 

He knows that the shade is too close to his eye color to be coincidental. That it might mean nothing, but it could also mean Bucky -does like him. Which sounds childish, but feels terrifying to his bones to think about.

 

He’s deserving of love. But Bucky’s a new experience; pale-skin and dark, lined eyes and an obsession with science fiction. Metal fingers tapping gently and comfortingly at Sam’s hip when he’s shaking out of nervousness, because they know him.

 

He knows that the wings might have changed over time because of him. And the thought alone makes his breath catch, tight in his throat.

 

“You’re staring,” Bucky tells him, and Sam jerks in place and drops his eyes to the table. It’s stained from all that wine Nat’d sloshed over it two months ago, so drunk her voice had started to slur.

 

“Sorry,” he says, soft, and traces a fingernail over the rough edge of purple stains and scratches deep in the wood, “spaced a bit.”

 

“Don’t apologise,” they shrug (Sam can hear it, in the shiver of their wings as they move), “I don’t mind. I know they’re cool.”

 

“Yeah, I.” He hums, tries to think of a way to say it that doesn’t seem accusatory or too exposing. “They change color? D’you know why, or…?”

 

Sam’s not entirely sure what he means by the lilting question. Hopes to God they can’t hear the way his voice goes a little weak just from the thought of it being because of him. He really needs to sleep more. It’s screwing with his already messy mental health.

 

Bucky flushes, when Sam looks up at them to check he hasn’t said something inadvertently terrible. Their cheeks, pink before, are darker now, red-tint extending to their ears even through all that foundation.

 

“Uh,” they try, and hum, reaching their metal hand back and stroking over their left wing, which is more ochre-toned than the right, “not sure. Steve thinks it’s some… Emotional thing, like it was pale before because of the trauma and the fear, or some shit. Like, uh… Anaphylaxis? But I’m not sure. It sort of makes sense? But Steve talks a lot of shit.”

 

“He does,” Sam agrees, “but I think it makes sense that they’d get colour into them over time. Like recovering. My ma said I looked permanently ill after I came home. Maybe your wings just took one for the team.”

 

Bucky looks at him, mouth gone a little twisted, almost shy looking. Their lipstick’s gone smudged, and it makes Sam’s ribs throb. He wants. How fucking embarrassing.

 

“I’m glad you’re not constantly sick-looking all the time, Sammy,” Bucky says, which. Isn’t at all what Sam had expected, but. Okay. Fine. “You look good when you’re happy. Makes me feel, uh. Nice. Soft.”

 

“I,” Sam says, and then rubs a hand over his chin with a huff of breath. Christ. “Thanks, Bucky. Means a lot.”

 

“Any time, pal,” Bucky grins, and Sam pretends not to notice the way their eyes go watery with emotion.

 

Focuses back on the curve of their right wing, which seems to be getting even darker, even while he watches.

 

+++

 

It’s not like Sam’s jealous.

 

It’s not, not really, barely at all.

 

Only. He’d like wings. He’d like the feeling back, a constant reminder of Riley that doesn’t feel like acid in a wound.

 

He’s seen Bucky fly before, almost shaky and still graceful, and it made Sam think about all those nights where he’d snuck out of base with Riley at his six, clipping their packs together. Feeling wind between his fingers and the metal wings clunking and whistling through the air behind them.

 

He’s got burns across his lower back from the prototypes, where the engine in them had just given up and died, and the thought of them (how he’d gotten them, nights alone and with Riley and their superiors) still makes his back burn with phantom pain.

 

It’s been years. And still he dreams of flying and the sound of Riley falling.

 

(“It was instantaneous,” the camp med team had told him, over and over, “he didn’t feel a thing.”

 

It didn’t stop Sam imagining the sound of his screams. Of heat and burns and hitting the ground knees-first, desperately looking for the one person who’d made everything worth it. When all he’d found was dirt slick with blood and Riley’s broken body, he’d vomited and hadn’t been able to stand for three hours.)

 

It’s one of those nights. He’s elbow-deep in one of his nana’s recipes for cherry pie, Netflix running on low on the laptop he’d stolen from Steve. There’s some mindless comedy playing that he hadn’t even listened to past the first scene, and he likes it like this.

 

Dark except for the countertop lights and the blue glow of the screen. Skin lit up navy while he digs his hands into the dough and molds, molds, molds.

 

It’s so much easier to think like this. When he knows no one’s around and he can just -let himself be, for a while. No need to put on a mask or his therapist voice, no need to cover anything up. No need to hold in the hitching sobs that wrack his body every few minutes, when keeping himself silent turns painful in his shoulders.

 

He’s just plaiting the crust together, one strip over another, cutting away the excess, when he slides the knife right into his thumb because he’s not quite paying attention.

 

It’s that yelp of pain, probably, that has Bucky staggering down the stairs three at a time, gun at the ready, hair out to here with sleep-frizz, and Sam barely contains a sigh at the sight of them. No goddamn peace.

 

(He doesn’t hate it. He doesn’t even resent it. Just... Sometimes, falling apart has to be done alone, and only alone. It’s something his therapist’d told him after he’d gotten back, and over and over again since then.)

 

“Sam?” Their voice is sleep-rough, and Sam’s chest aches. He fucking wants. He’s so tired of wanting. It’s been months.

 

“I’m fine,” he tells them, “no one here, just me. Bad night.”

 

Sam watches their reflection in the window, the way their body slides back into sweet, protective but not aggressive, not offensive. The way their wings go from taut and drawn back to loose, flowing down towards the ground. In the light, they look the same color as Sam’s skin.

 

“Wait,” Sam tells them, just as they’re about to turn around with a nod, “just…”

 

“What?” Bucky asks, and they look so apprehensive, like Sam’s going to turn around and tell them to fuck off.

 

He’s waited so fucking long. If they want to ignore it, if they want to never acknowledge it again in the light of day, that’s fine. Sam’ll brush it off as a dissociative haze. Never mention it.

 

But, for now…

 

Their hip is soft, warm, under his hand, when he grips them, pulls them in, but it’s their mouth that makes Sam’s breath come short. So fucking soft and chapped and tasting of cherries. The complete opposite of anything he’d ever gotten from Riley, who’d been all teeth and huge smiles and vibrance.

 

Bucky’s slow and sweet and fucking beautiful, and Sam realises he’s probably deeper than he should be, but. He deserves happiness.

 

His right hand strokes over Bucky’s stomach, the curve of it, softness covering muscle. The left clings to their jaw with all his strength, because if he tries anything less he’ll back away and never let himself have it.

 

(And it’s not healthy, probably, but Bucky’s wings are moving in, holding him close, like a cocoon of warmth, a murmured “ _yes_ ,” spoken right against Sam’s mouth, hot and warm. )

 

“Is this,” Sam tries, because. Consent. Informed consent. Not just moving in on your friend out of a blatant need.

 

“Yes,” Bucky says, voice sounding broken, “it’s. Fine, fuck, kiss me?”

 

Sam does. His skin looks blue against their soft golden glow, and it’s that sight alone that makes his stomach finally settle.

 

+++

 

Sam wakes up the next morning (or the same morning. Fuck time.) with a feeling of dread deep in the pit of his gut, and lips swollen from kissing.

 

“Christ,” he sighs to himself, and thinks about Bucky’s skin turned purple in the low lights of the kitchen and the way they’d grinned at him through a mouthful of red, tart fruit. Like he hung the fucking stars.

 

They’d gone to bed an hour and a half later, not discussing it, not talking about it, sat down eating their way through the two pies Sam had cooked before Bucky had come downstairs and ruined Sam’s brain for a while.

 

And that’s. Fine. Really, truly, it is, because the idea of talking about how he definitely fucking has Feelings for Bucky Goddamn Barnes is so humiliating. He’s seen them with a half-shaved beard and chest hair full of cheeto dust. By all means, he should be running for the hills, not kissing them in moonlight like some fucking romantic comedy Steve always cries at.

 

Sam’s halfway through brushing his teeth when Bucky comes into the bathroom, wings scrunched up behind them as they stretch like a cat.

 

“Mornin’,” they grunt, all dead-voiced, the way that they do just to fuck with Steve when he gets his anxious face on, “you showering?”

 

“Nah.” Sam spits, smiles into the mirror, rinses his mouth out with cold water. “Oh, I’ve never asked. How d’you wash your wings?”

 

Bucky gives him a blank stare. “I fold them in and condition them.”

 

“That easy?” Sam asks, sort of. Confused. He’d always assumed they just kind of-. Well. Sit there? But then, they get into so much shit that that’d probably be unwise, so.

 

“That easy,” they tell him, “it’s moving my fucking dick out of the way that’s the real issue. Huge. Massive. Unwieldy, if we’re using the technical term.”

 

Sam leaves the room and locks the door behind him in revenge for having to listen to any of that.

 

(Bucky climbs through the window and throws fistfuls of grass at Sam through the patio door. Sam, eventually, admits defeat and has to shower anyway.

 

They don’t talk about it.)

 

+++

 

Bucky’s acting weird.

 

Sam’s not sure why, or how, but he’d been ready to get curled up with them on the sofa, maybe watch some shitty comedy. And instead of agreeing to, like always, they’d gone shifty-eyed and shrugged off his invitation with a fucking awful fake cough.

 

Greatest assassin of the century Sam’s left fucking testicle.

 

“It’s nothing,” Bucky had assured him, plastering on a smile, “I just need to recuperate.”

 

“Do supersoldiers even get sick?” Sam had asked them, head tilted, and Bucky had shrugged.

 

“Guess so,” they placed a hand over their stomach, suddenly, and their eyes went wide, “uh. Need to go.”

 

Sam lets it happen. Stomach issues are nothing to be fucked around with. He’ll just leave some anti-cramping tablets in the bathroom and let them have at. It’s only fair.

 

+++

 

By the time he leaves for work the morning after, Bucky’s spoken all of fifty words to him.

 

Sam’s not… Panicking. He’s not. It’s just that he’d like to know if Bucky’s uncomfortable. If maybe he’s read literally everything wrong and they don’t know how to let him down easy.

 

They’d at least gone for a smoke with Steve on the back porch at some point last night, since Sam had smelled fresh weed floating through his open window. He’d heard some kind of huffing laughter, the kind Steve has when he’s trying not to find something funny, so at least Bucky hadn’t been having a breakdown.

 

(And probably Steve wouldn’t laugh if Bucky was talking about their feelings towards Sam.

 

Steve always gets a wrinkle between his eyebrows about that kind of thing, pinched and sort of ugly, sucking his lower lip into his mouth like a defence mechanism.

 

It helps, knowing that they’re probably okay, but Sam can’t help but be just the slightest bit pissed off.

 

Because if they’re okay, it just means that they’re avoiding Sam for… Some reason. His anxiety’s been on the edge of panic attack territory for about fourteen hours, now, and it’s driving him up the wall.

 

As if by magic, just as he’s thinking about muttering at Bucky or telling them off, he gets a text from them.

 

It’s a picture of them, covered in flour and with a joint caught between their lips. In the background, Nat’s doing a peace sign with her tongue poking out.

 

The caption reads only: **gay and lesbian solidarity!**

 

Sam responds with a rainbow flag emoji and a picture of his packed lunch (which he’d spitefully made with the last piece of Bucky’s chocolate cake.)

 

He giggles when he sees the response, and feels the anger fade.

 

**Homophobia is real and out there :(**

 

+++

 

Sam spends a lot of his breaks at the cat rescue centre over the way from the VA.

 

It’s not like he’s pining after them. It’s just… Cats are fucking great. They’re loyal and sweet and so loving and Sam’s so weak for them it’s horrifying. He gets dogs. He _does_. He even enjoys their company. But there’s something about the bitter look on a cats face every time you do something wrong that just. Sits right with him.

 

In his heart, he loves the pettiness that all cats have inside them. He can truly relate.

 

It also doesn’t hurt that the guy who runs the place most of the time is so fucking beautiful it makes Sam want to off himself. But that’s neither here nor there.

 

“Samuel,” said dude says, dark eyes looking him up and down, “are you sure you don’t wish to adopt? You have quite a bond with Romeo.”

 

Romeo’s an old, sickly cat who loves being cuddled close and needs to be walked on a leash twice a day. He’s white, speckled grey, and Sam’s completely in love with him.

 

“I’m not sure,” he says, for the millionth time, “wouldn’t be fair to take in a cat like that and not have the time.”

 

He doesn’t mention Bucky, who leaves the house mostly for missions or revenge roadtrips and three-am bodega runs for peanut butter ice cream. (Their therapy sessions are mostly through Skype, not through want but through necessity, because it’d just be unfeasible to travel to Manhattan three times a week when it fucks with their mental health so much). And that Bucky would also probably love Romeo and have some kind of weird kinship with him.

 

Because Bucky is irrelevant in this decision. Not because he’s always thinking about them. Or whatever.

 

“You’re a good man,” T’Challa tells him, and Sam’s stomach flutters with nerves. God. This is so unfair. “You’ll be happy, I think, to know that one of our newer members is close to being in labor?”

 

“Oh,” Sam says, voice gone warm with the thought. Oh. Tiny baby kittens. That he could train as a support animal. He could take them around in a cute little sling or by leash. He could be the man he’s always truly aspired to be. “Oh, that’s… That’s amazing.”

 

T’Challa’s eyes light up, voice going deep and happy. Sam’s a fucking hopeless case and T’Challa knows it. He should never have signed up to be on the newsletter. It just means he’s bombarded by more and more cases of homeless cats who need shelter.

 

“You’re welcome to any of them, of course,” T’Challa tells him, “you know our policy.”

 

“I do,” Sam says, thinking of the time he and Steve had worked for hours to fix up Nat’s place so she could bring back a tiny kitten named Liho, who was too sick to stay in the centre. They’d deemed it the cleanest place they’d ever seen, and Sam had puffed up with so much pride Steve had pinched him in the crease of his elbow. “Uh, which one’s pregnant?”

 

“Her name is,” T’Challa pauses for a moment, flips through a little black notebook on the desk in front of him, “Cassiopeia. She’s young, we think. Came in half-feral. She stopped hissing when we gave her food. A… lot of food.”

 

“You spoil her?” Sam asks, grin twitching at his mouth, and T’Challa hides a smile.

 

“She is,” he says, “very sweet.”

 

“That’s a yes, then,” Sam snorts, and T’Challa buzzes him through to the cats.

 

Sam pretends not to hear the sigh.

 

Cassiopeia, it turns out, _is_ very sweet. She’s got a chunk out of her left ear, a tiny sweet face, and a swollen stomach that Sam’s sort of trying not to coo at. She waddles over to him to say hello, nips his fingers, and scents him.

 

His heart is close to exploding. He’s going to die, here, surrounded by the smell of cats and wet food and watered down bleach.

 

He flips his phone out of his pocket with trembling hands, Cass nudging against his hand and _brring_ at him in a high pitched purr. “Stay still,” he tells her, and films her as she rubs against his thigh.

 

She’s a licker, is something Sam finds out quickly, softly and methodically cleaning over his leg. It doesn’t matter that he’s clean. He films it anyway, knows he’s making embarrassing soft noises, scratches between her ears.

 

“When’re you due, huh?” He asks, gentle, and Cass bites the tip of his finger with white teeth, “when’re you gonna gift small children unto us?”

 

Cass pads at his hip, and begins trying to climb him. She fails, claws too short to properly latch on, bottom heavy with the swaying weight of her swollen stomach. She makes a high-pitched, pathetic noise that Sam wants to cry at.

 

By the time he’s walking back to the VA, lunch uneaten in his bag, he’s got thirty eight pictures of Cassiopiea and three ten minute long videos.

 

He’s in too fucking deep. But at least his coworkers will appreciate the footage.

 

+++

 

“Aw, man,” is the first thing Bucky says upon seeing the videos. There’s tears in their eyes. Paired with the holster at their hip and the healing wound along the bottom of their jaw, they look like they just came home from war; not at all like they’ve spent the day napping and Snapchatting Sam pictures of Peggy they’d taken last week. “I want one.”

 

“I know,” Sam tells them, “you should get one.”

 

Bucky sighs. Then twitches, head jerking up, eyes gone wide with - wonder? Adoration? Sam doesn’t want to read into it, but he understands the appeal. Sam’s fucking beautiful. It’s a fact of life he just has to live with.

 

“Really?” Their voice is breathless, and their wings tremble with excitement. The color’s somehow even richer today. There’s barely more than eight pale golden-white feathers left, almost all russet-toned.

 

He hopes they at least vacuumed when they moulted everywhere. Sam’s tired of getting poked in the ass by one of Bucky’s ridiculously long feathers.

 

“You want kittens, right?” Sam asks, “because I do. And I think it’d… Be good for both of us. Maybe. To have a therapy animal, or at least a support animal. Even if they’re not trained officially.”

 

“Kittens _plural_?” Bucky whispers, and Sam snorts, brushes a finger over the curve of their wing. It trembles under his hand.

 

“Maybe,” Sam says, because he doesn’t want to be too fucking sappy with this. He has to have some self-restraint, some time in his life. Probably. “We’d see how it goes.”

 

“But you’d let me have one?” Bucky asks, and their voice is just slightly too innocent. Just slightly too sweet to not be hiding anything.

 

“...Yes,” Sam says, and narrows his eyes, “what did you do?”

 

Bucky, with no shame at all, a glint in their eyes, pulls a tiny tabby-black kitten from the pocket of their overlarge sweater.

 

+++

 

Sam regrets ever letting Bucky live here. Sure, he didn’t have a choice, but he could have kicked them out. He could have grown a spine, or maybe eight, or… Willpower.

 

Thrown James Buchanan Barnes out on the streets before they ever infested his home with cake tins shaped like dicks, with posters of a very naked Thor Odinson, with framed pictures of stockphoto kittens.

 

He should have said no all those months ago.

 

He is paying the price now.

 

+++

 

Bucky sits there, tiny kitten in their lap, and grins. Like they didn’t just bring a kitten out of thin air.

 

How was it silent? How did it stay so quiet? How didn’t Sam notice?

 

“What,” Sam tries, and swallows. It’s really hard to fake anger when there’s a kitten that looks barely three weeks old settled between Bucky’s thick, soft thighs. It’s so fucking cute.

 

“I,” Bucky says, and softly places the kitten into the pouch of their hoodie. The one Sam cut holes in the back because he’s sure keeping wings tucked up like that just. Cannot be comfortable. “Found them outside yesterday?”

 

 _Yesterday_. As in the day after Sam made out with them and Bucky skirted around them and didn’t talk to them. The day, Sam is realising now, that he barely fucking saw them. Maybe not out of embarrassment for what happened the night before, but because they’d been desperately hiding a kitten from Sam’s notice.

 

All that weird, terrible acting, Sam realises, wasn’t out of a need to stay out of Sam’s way, but out of fear that Sam might take the tiny kitten away.

 

The thought makes his heart hurt.

 

“How have you even,” Sam stops. Watches the tiny little lump move around in their hoodie. “I don’t understand. You’re bottle-feeding it?”

 

Bucky smiles, sweet and blushing. “Yeah, I am.”

 

“Every two hours? All the proper stuff?”

 

“Yep.” Bucky strokes a metal finger over the wiggling lump of kitten. It stops wiggling. Sam’s heart does not.

 

“You’ve got a heat pad? A soft blanket?”

 

“Yes, Sam,” Bucky sighs, “I know how to look after kittens. I spent three weeks volunteering for a rescue centre before you came home after looking for me. And Nat came and dropped stuff from when Liho was small round yesterday.”

 

The selfie. Sam feels betrayed to his very core.

 

All of this information at once is too much to bare. Sam is only one man.

 

Bucky really volunteered after breaking out of nazi control? Like… Nothing?

 

(Well. Sam knows that’s not true. Nothing is ever truly like nothing after coming home from war. Trauma makes everything difficult.)

 

“So you avoiding me,” Sam says, and thinks _what the fuck are you doing what the fuck are you doing what the fuck are you-_ , “that wasn’t because I made everything weird?”

 

Bucky’s face goes pink. They glance down, gnaw on their lip, double chin gone soft with the action. They look so fucking beautiful like this, wings brown and stretched out, brushing against the floor. “No. You didn’t make it weird.”

 

Sam looks away. Watching makes his chest hurt.

 

+++

 

Bucky carries the kitten everywhere. It isn’t conducive to Sam trying to deal with his Feelings and Emotions, but this is the life he must live, apparently.

 

Which includes, horrifyingly, how cute Bucky looks with a tiny four(? Sam’s pretty sure it’s four)  week kitten curled up on their chest, wings curled up and around to protect them. And the fact that now Bucky carries around tiny little bottles of kitten formula, like some kind of weird nurse.

 

It makes Sam want to cry.

 

“Sam,” Bucky says, soft, and wrinkles their nose, “Sam, look.”

 

Sam, an intelligent guy, has been trying to avoid looking at all. He’s invested in the case file Steve had given him to read over yesterday. Definitely not because it enhances his avoidance opportunities.

 

“Bucky,” he tries, but they make a pitiful whining noise in response. “C’mon, dude.”

 

“Sammy,” they sigh, voice all sweet-reverent, “look at them.”

 

Sam looks.

 

He regrets being alive and not kicking Bucky out onto the streets. This is. Not good for his emotional wellbeing.

 

The tiny thing’s tucked up on Bucky’s stomach, kneading against the bulge of their gut. It’s making these tiny huffs, trying to suckle at Bucky’s hoodie sleeve, and it’s so unfairly cute that Sam’s hands tremble just holding the file.

 

Fuck everything. He’s joining the avengers out of spite and want for only the end.

 

“Oh, no,” Sam says, “that’s so much.”

 

Bucky grins, wings fluttering at him, and the kitten pauses to crawl up their chest and purr right against their mouth. Sam is melting. He is dying. The only thing he has ever known is death and pain. “I’ve figured out a name for them.”

 

Sam prepares himself for something horrible. “Oh, yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” Bucky says, “Faber.”

 

That is. Not terrible, actually. Out there, sort of cute, sort of weird. Very… Bucky, if Sam’s being honest, and so suited to the kitten that Sam suddenly can’t see it as anything else.

 

“It’s nice,” Sam tells them, and Bucky kisses the kitten on the head and lets it suckle at their finger, “suits them.”

 

“Yeah,” Bucky tells him, and their voice is warm, sweet, so sincere it makes Sam’s stomach clench, “I think so, too.”

 

Sam is so unbelievably fucked.

 

+++

 

Bucky, it turns out, is a cat mother.

 

Sam should have seen this coming. He’s dealt with so much shit over the months Bucky’s been here that Bucky Barnes Goes Soft Over Baby Animals was hardly the worse thing he’d encountered.

 

He should have been wiser. He should have realised what it would mean when Bucky finally wrangled their way into getting a kitten.

 

“Look,” they tell him, and show him a picture of a squashed-looking cat in a papoose. “A papoose! For kittens!”

 

“Do not do it.”

 

Bucky smiles at him.

 

Sam glares back. If he doesn’t hold his ground he’ll never get anywhere. Barnes is exactly like a cat; territorial, a little petty, a little angry, very cuddly, no ability to handle marijuana.

 

Their wings do a pretty little tremble-shake and engulf Sam in a hug.

 

Sam doesn’t have to be looking at Bucky’s screen to know they’ve already put the order in.

 

“I hate you.”

 

“Nah,” Bucky giggles, and pokes him in the tummy, “you love me. _And_ Faber.”

 

Sam doesn’t disagree. He turns his attention to his sock drawer instead.

 

Sam Wilson is mature, and learned, and a strong man.

 

(He may or may not put an order in for a jumper in his size with a little kitten-pouch. If he neglects to tell Bucky, that’s just a coincidence.)

 

+++

 

Sam wanted a chill weekend.

 

He’s had a rough week. He’s been dealing with a lot of shit. He just wanted a nice weekend in which to curl up on the sofa, pet Faber, and maybe nap a couple times.

 

“Some asshole and a group of robots are trying to take over Brooklyn.”

 

Sam curls tighter around his pillow and makes a keening sound.

 

“Sammy,” Bucky sighs, nudging at him, “I have to go help out. Can you look after Faber?”

 

Sam considers self-immolation so seriously that he feels his therapist recoil from across the city.

 

“Have they had their morning feed,” he mumbles into his pillow. He’s blessed, thankfully, by the fact Bucky’s skilled in reading his voice.

 

Even if they are evil to their core.

 

“Yeah,” they say, and Sam feels a soft touch graze over his exposed hip, “give it two hours. I’ll be back sooner than you know.”

 

“Impossible,” Sam tells them, as Faber curls up on his pillow. Their tiny nose brushes his cheek. “I always know.”

 

“Oh.” Sam hears the sound of a hitching breath, “see you, Sam.”

 

“Yeah,” Sam says, half asleep, “love you, too.”

 

+++

 

When Sam wakes up (properly wakes up, a couple hours later), Faber’s drooled so heavily onto his pillow that he has to strip it of its case and put it in the basket for washing.

 

He tries to be mad, tries to be frustrated, but all they have to do is cock their tiny head and elicit a tiny, creaky mewl, and Sam’s done for.

 

Bucky’s left their little bottle of milk and a syringe on the counter in the kitchen, along with… An array of knives Sam hasn’t seen before but which have probably been in the house as long as Bucky has.

 

“You hungry?” He asks, and Faber purrs sweetly, butting their head against Sam’s fingers. Sam tries not to get all weepy about it.

 

He settles himself in place on the table, syringes the milk up, makes sure it’s warm, and then. Pauses.

 

Oh, holy fucking Christ.

 

“Earlier,” Sam begins, and Faber blinks at him. They’re a really good listener, for such a tiny ball of fluff and milk. “Did I tell Bucky that I… loved them?”

 

Faber presses their paws into Sam’s stomach, kneading. Sam carefully feeds them their milk, hiding a smile when the excess dribbles down their front and drowns their paws. They’re so tiny. So small. “Mrp.”

 

“Yeah,” Sam says, and sighs. “That’s what I thought.”

 

+++

 

Faber’s one of the most calm housemates Sam’s ever had. Which is good, since Sam spends a lot of the day with the television droning on with live footage of the fight, trying not to be nervous.

 

Bucky probably didn’t hear. (Wishful thinking.)

 

Bucky probably sees it as a platonic thing, even. (Possible.)

 

Bucky’s probably so embarrassed by the fact Sam said it they’re leaving the country as soon as the fight is over. (Plausible.)

 

Bucky probably won’t mind and probably won’t be obsessing, since they’re currently fighting a robot horde, and even if they did mind they wouldn’t say anything, because unlike all of Sam’s other friends, they have tact. (Horrifying, and almost definitely true.)

 

At least they’re not hurt. Probably.

 

Steve is, like every moment of his life, in the thick of it, tearing out robot throats and throwing wires down onto the ground. Nat occasionally leans down to pick up the garbage and use it to garotte another to death, like a cannibalistic savaging.

 

Bucky’s mostly managing to avoid the footage, God knows how. Probably they made a deal with some higher-up so the only shots that’d be aired would be ones where they look ethereal, flying above everyone else and shooting into the disaster below. Their wings, somehow even darker now, black-brown and stunning against the light sky, make them look like some kind of avenging angel.

 

“That’s your mama,” Sam tells Faber, and they waddle away from him and roll onto their side for belly rubs. Sam scoops them back up. “Yeah, me, too.”

 

By about three, Sam’s gone from anxiously watching to anxiously pacing, and he’s seriously considering an upgrade to anxious baking. He’d have to put Faber in the little papoose Bucky got (eyes filled with sheer glee), but it’d probably be okay. Maybe they’d even enjoy it.

 

Then again, maybe they like it just because Bucky’s soft all over so they’re kind of like a sexy human pillow with pockets full of cat treats.

 

He’s just critically eyeing the papoose (how do these things work? How did his sister live through having three tiny kids strapped to her like this?), when the door opens and Sam jumps almost a foot in the air.

 

Faber grumbles impatiently and curls even tighter into his pocket, and Sam grabs a knife from the counter (thanks, past-Bucky), only to find said-person staring at him from the entrance of the door.

 

They’re head-to-toe covered in dirt and grime and stinking to high heaven, and Sam knows for a fact he’s going to find feathers clogging the shower drain again, but God if they aren’t beautiful beyond all that. Even with it.

 

“You’re wearing my jumper,” Bucky says, and swallows.

 

“It’s got the little pouch.” Sam shrugs, because saying _it smells like you and I like that_ is. Creepy and too real. “Good for kitten wrangling.”

 

“You’re so fucking beautiful it makes me want to cry.” Bucky steps forward.

 

Sam steps back, fingers curling into the kitten pouch, and finding comfort in the way Faber brushes against his knuckles. “Stop.”

 

Bucky pauses, eyes going wide, face suddenly gone pale. “Oh, God, did I-... Get this wrong? Fuck.”

 

Sam thinks. Thinks of wanting and Peggy’s words and the way that he’d felt, kissing Bucky in the darkened kitchen. Thinks of falling in and out of love and of Riley. Of knowing he deserves to feel good and loved and beautiful. Of knowing, to his core, that he is.

 

“No,” Sam tells them, “you got it right.”

 

This time, when they kiss, the only thing wrong with it is the dirt that mars Sam’s skin, and the purring kitten between them, mewling for attention.

 

+++

 

It’s easy.

 

Which is something Sam had known it could be, but somehow now feels sweeter, when he’s bracketed in by Bucky’s thighs against his kitchen table.

 

Bucky’s mouth is sweet, and soft, and they taste of smoke and battle and blood, of everything Sam’s ever wanted.

 

Loving Riley had been fraught with terror at being caught, even when they were so in love they got dumb.

 

Loving Steve had been a mistake, an accident, and so good it made his teeth ache.

 

Loving Bucky Barnes, knowing with all his head that they’ve seen and done terrible things, that they’re working actively, hard, to fix that. Loving Bucky Barnes and not seeing the fear, any more, not after the first hurdle, in the kitchen flooded with light, is easy.

 

It’s a home he hadn’t known he had the ability to own, to unlock, to lie in.

 

“You,” Bucky says, and stops, swallows, breathing hard against Sam’s shoulder, “God, Sam, I… You mean the fucking world to me, you know that?”

 

Their wings curl around them both, a shroud of protection, and Sam’s stomach goes warm and hot with want, with need. “You make me a better man.”

 

Bucky flushes. Their hands, both of them, grab at Sam’s hips, and they make such a desperate noise that the only thing Sam can do is kiss them again, hands on their cheeks.

 

“We need to feed the kid,” Bucky says, and Sam doesn’t realise for a second. And then he giggles. “Kitten! I meant. Kitten.”

 

“Nah,” Sam says, “you meant kid. I’ve seen you around kids. You’re a disaster. You just wanna be a parent.”

 

Bucky whines. “Don’t say that when I’m trying not to rub off on your thigh, Sam, you’re making it weird.”

 

Sam’s breath catches in his throat.

 

“Feeding Faber first,” Sam says, voice gone rough. Bucky’s eyes are dark when he looks at them. “Then… Bedroom.”

 

Sam has never in his life seen Bucky move with such purpose.

 

+++

 

Sam’s still breathless and shaking when Bucky laughs into his shoulder.

 

“Nat wins,” they grin, eyelashes fluttering against Sam’s skin, and Sam blinks.

 

Not what he’d been thinking about, but fair enough. “Uh, okay?”

 

“We, um,” they wriggle back, belly pressing against Sam’s thighs, “made a bet, or pact, or. Whatever. Anyway. I said you weren’t into me and she said you were and the person who won got to have full rein over outfits for a week.”

 

Sam hums. “Does that mean I can help?”

 

Bucky narrows their eyes. They look like an irritated bird, but the effect’s somewhat ruined by the ruffled feathers and hickies marking up their throat. “Depends what you mean by help.”

 

“Well,” Sam says, “I have a lot of thoughts on crop tops and leather pants.”

 

It’s totally worth it for the way Bucky collapses against him into hopeless giggles.

 

+++

 

It’s a weird way to do things. To go from enemies to roommates to friends to lovers, to something more than even that.

 

It’s especially weird because their first date is less a date and more getting high out of their minds on the porch, basket between them with a purring Faber all wrapped up warm. Bucky had insisted on a miniature tiger blanket they’d bought from a market, like a nineteenth century nobleman.

 

“I didn’t think,” Bucky says, and blows smoke into rings into the night air, “when I first came here, that I’d get this. I knew that Steve could forgive me, and Peggy would, too, but I didn’t - expect to be this happy, you know? I thought the most I could get would be… Redemption. Regaining myself.”

 

“By double,” Sam grins, and pokes at their soft belly. Bucky huffs out a laugh. “But, uh. I know what you mean.”

 

Bucky’s wing tickles at his side, and Sam can admit to himself now that the color matches his skin, the way it looks in the shade.

 

“After Riley, I didn’t feel... Real, any more. He was my future, he was going to be my husband, we bought this place because - because it could be a future we didn’t have to hide any more. I lost a part of myself in the sand I’m not ever going to get back. It’s taken a while to know that that’s okay, and it’s okay to… Want things. That Riley would want me to be happy.”

 

Bucky’s fingers graze up his side, so warm even through his clothes, and the ache in his throat is still there, always there, will never fully disappear, but it’s easier to swallow it with a grounding touch at his hip.

 

“I fell in love with Steve,” he tells them, and they nod. It’s not like he’d kept it quiet, but it’s still a shock to see the open understanding cross their face. “And in some ways I think it fucked me up more. Because I knew there wasn’t a chance, not really. Not when he had Peggy and he was so focused on finding you.”

 

“We’ve made out, and we’ve fucked, and for me there’s been more there, but I don’t think there was for him. I think he was made for loving you, and for loving Peggy, and that’s okay. But it hurt.”

 

Bucky swallows, stubs out the last of his joint on the decking. Takes a moment to check on Faber and press his warm fingers into their fur.

 

“I loved him,” Bucky says, and Sam had known, had seen it in their eyes, because how could you see Steve Rogers and not love him, despite everything? “For a long time. I used to pick up guys, in bars, risk getting raided, just because they looked like him. All thin fingers and blond hair and none of the fire. It was a poor imitation and I still went home wanting him.”

 

Sam grips their hand. It’s cool, metal chill with the night air, but good.

 

“I love him, now, and I think… I think I always will. And I know we could have been something, could… Still be something, someday, maybe, if either of you wanted me. But I know that it doesn’t feel like loving… It doesn’t feel like how I feel for you. Steve, ‘nd what I felt for Steve, that was born out of a different time and panic and desire and anger, and I’m not built for that any more. Being angry does nothin’ but hurt me, make me feel like the soldier. I’m made for loving someone good, and kind, and gentle, who would never harm someone unless out of protection.”

 

Sam swallows, tries to catch his breath, but looking at Bucky, pale in the moonlight, wings dark and draping behind them, does nothing to alleviate the pressure in his throat.

 

“I’m built for lovin’ you, Wilson,” they say, and lean in to kiss him, “more than anything, I was crafted from the earth for you.”

 

+++

 

It’d figure that after talking about wanting to keep it secret, it’d get blown apart by Steve having no concept of personal space.

 

Sam had wanted a calm day in bed, with a lot of kissing and a lot of kitten rearing and maybe takeout. He’d wanted to make pancakes with Bucky and taste syrup off their tongue.

 

Instead, he wanders out into the living room entirely naked, marked up all over, to find Steve snoring and drooling over his couch.

 

“Rogers,” he says, while naked, because he has no shame any more. He spent so much money for this body. “What the fuck?”

 

Steve jerks away, eyes going wide as he takes in all of Sam’s (obvious, startling) beauty, and then flushes pink over his cheeks. Bucky’d told him in the summers, back then, he’d get so sunburned Bucky would be relegated to lotion duty. He imagines he probably looked like this.

 

“Uh,” Steve says, and his voice is rough, “you. I. You’re naked. Am I. Interrupting something?”

 

Which is, obviously, when Bucky makes themself known.

 

Because Sam lives a cursed life.

 

“Oh, Jesus Lord, Bucky,” Steve sighs, and Bucky blinks at him in confusion.

 

“Am I hallucinating again?” Bucky asks, and presses their knuckles into Sam’s back. The touch makes the string of hickies down his spine tingle.

 

“No,” Sam sighs, “the asshole is really here.”

 

“Well.” Bucky tugs a nightgown from the shelf in the living room, where Sam had thrown it last night in a fit of passion. “Unless you’re here for a threesome, Steven, I suggest you don’t stay.”

 

Steve’s face goes through such a huge amount of emotions that Sam half expects him to explode on the spot. “Here for a who?”

 

“A threesome,” Sam prompts, “did you _want_ to be spitroasted?”

 

Bucky barely manages to stifle a giggle. Sam has to think about horrific things to stop himself from collapsing.

 

“I came over because…” Steve looks terrified and turned on at once. Sam’s seen it before. “I just. Wanted. Uh. Things? I was going to come over for a case file but I haven’t slept, and… I… Crashed here, I guess. Does this mean. I mean. Are you two…?”

 

“Canoodling?”

 

“Fucking?”

 

“Deeply, irrevocably in love and looking into adopting three children?”

 

Sam takes a moment just to work through the thought of it. Figures Bucky would tell Sam they love him out of the need for humor. It perfectly fits everything Sam knows about them.

 

Steve drags a hand over his face and grunts. “So you are together?”

 

“Yes,” they say simultaneously, and Bucky grins, like they still hadn’t been sure. Fucking idiot.

 

“Oh,” Steve smiles so wide it looks like it _hurts_ , “oh! I should go! You should celebrate!”

 

Sam sighs. Bucky thunks their head against Sam’s strong shoulder.

 

“Why didn’t I think of that,” Sam says, and hugs Steve goodbye before watching him go.

 

The fact he’s just left a dick print against Steve Rogers’ jeans isn’t even the weirdest thing to happen to him this morning doesn’t escape him.

 

And, in all honesty, he can’t feel mad about it.

 

+++

 

**AVENGERS GROUPCHAT**

 

 **NAT:** you owe me a week’s outfits barnes :))))

 

 **BUCKY:** remember that time I got you a date with sharon and you owed me and also cried and wanted no one to know

 

 **STEVE:** buck threats aren’t nice

 

 **STEVE:** but… nat? you cried????

 

 **NAT:** hope you like glitter, james

 

 **SAM:** not to influence anything but if you’ve got bondage gear…..

 

 **STEVE:** i hate you both so fucking much

 

 **PEGGY:** sam msg me i got u

 

 **NAT:** [puke emoji]

 

+++

 

“Samuel.”

 

Sam does not look up. He’s trying to make a fucking meringue buttercream, he doesn’t have the energy or time to spare for Bucky and their antics. Even if they are very cute.

 

“Sammy!”

 

Sam continues stirring, more frantically now.

 

“Sam Wilson, look at me!”

 

Sam sighs. He moves the pan to the back hob, and turns around.

 

What he finds is. Uh. Okay, yeah, he can see why they were insisting.

 

His breath catches in his throat. He’s not sure how to process this, how to accept it at all, because… It’s a fucking lot.

 

“I was,” he tries, voice cracking, “joking about the leather pants.”

 

Bucky, framed in the doorway and surrounded by black and brown feathers, is wearing only leather pants and a sheer crop top. The crop top, to Sam’s horror, says only BABYDOLL  in glitter-writing. It does not make Sam feel anything.

 

They step forward, and Sam finally (finally) notices that their eyes are lined in soft black, mascara curling their lashes up towards their (now perfectly groomed?) eyebrows. Their lips are red, and if Sam had seen them months ago, before they were together, before they were friends, he might assume it was from battle, from blood and bruising.

 

Now all Sam can see is the perfect curve of their mouth in lipstick, the way they look with their cheeks pinked up and a soft glow on the high points of their face.

 

“You like?” Their voice is wary, cautious, and Sam can tell from the angle of their wings - brushing the ground, now, lowered down, that they’re terrified about Sam’s response.

 

As if he could be anything except fully enthusiastic about this development.

 

“Bucky Barnes,” he says, and steps forward with hands outstretched. He rethinks after a moment, turns back around, and turns the stove off. He can make that cake later. “You’re killing me.”

 

When they crook their fingers at him, Sam can’t even laugh. He’s too busy tripping over his own feet to taste the lipstick on Bucky’s mouth.

 

+++

 

“Mmm,” Bucky nods, mouthing at Sam’s thigh, “what’s this?”

 

Sam blinks the haze from his mind, trying to come back to himself. He’s tired, limbs loose and chest light, and he’s so happy with Bucky curled across him that every movement seems a little. Intense.

 

“On my thigh?” He asks, and curls his fingers in Bucky’s long, tangled hair, tugging up just the way Bucky likes, “it’s the scarring from the phalloplasty. Didn’t want it on my arm or my side. You didn’t notice before?”

 

“I was a little preoccupied,” Bucky says, cheeks flushing, “with trying to lure you into bed with my ethereal charm. I might have seen it before? But I don’t really, uh. Categorize scars, you know.”

 

Sam buries the nausea at the thought of why they don’t think about it. Not right now. He can think about it later, when he’s not glowing, when he’s not this happy.

 

“There wasn’t much luring,” Sam says, thinking about the way Bucky had literally crooked their finger. He tries not to think about the fact it worked on him. “It was more desperation, on your part, I think.”

 

“Shut up,” Bucky hisses, and nips softly at the skin just under where the scarring on Sam’s thigh ends, “homophobe.”

 

“So when’d you get it?” Bucky asks, a moment later, propping his soft jaw up on Sam’s hip, eyes still slightly glazed. “If you’re okay with saying.”

 

“Nah, it’s fine,” Sam shrugs, “me and Steve had, like, a three hour conversation about it the second time we met. He wasn’t sure if he wanted it or not, wanted to know what it was like. Not that he had to worry about the scarring, or anything. Bastard. Anyway. About three years ago? Used my airforce pension up for it. Then fundraised for top surgery a year later. Figured the least they could do after everything was fund my transition, y’know?”

 

Bucky nods, sucking their bottom lip into their mouth. “Yeah, I get that. Sucks the army hasn’t changed since the forties.”

 

“It’s fucked,” Sam says. He thinks about those anxious nights at Riley’s side, chest burning with all the love he held inside he had to keep quiet. All that open want and need. Having to hold himself together even with his fingers in bloodied dirt at Riley’s lifeless body.

 

“I’ll kill anyone who made you feel bad,” Bucky says, and it’d sound like a brush-off from anyone else, except maybe the others, but Sam knows Bucky’d do it. They’re loyal to a fault, and there’s no part of Sam that can resent that. “One shot, right to the head.”

 

“They deserve worse,” he says, a little too honest, and Bucky hums, eyes closing, “there was a long time, there, where even after I’d figured out all my shit I still felt… Wrong.”

 

Bucky’s hands tighten on his hips. “Did I ever tell you what being gay in the forties was like?”

 

Sam thinks back, conversations sprawled over each other, blue glow floating over Bucky’s face. All those times they’ve talked, and Bucky’s never really said that much about before. Which. Sam gets that. Before can’t have been great.

 

“No, you didn’t.”

 

Bucky shuffles until they’ve got their thighs over Sam’s calves and their hands against the soft edges of Sam’s hips, pale skin standing out against his, especially where there’s the faint show of scarring edging around towards his back from top surgery.

 

They’re heavy on top of him, and Sam likes the press of the curve of their stomach against him, warm and soft.

 

“It was,” Bucky takes a breath, leans against Sam’s pecs, “bad. Like, fuck, it was awful. I lived in Brooklyn, you know? You know I grew up with Steve, in that gay parta town? You’d think it’d be… Comforting. But all I ever heard was all my friends… Getting raided. Beaten by cops. Sure there’s community, but when that community comes with violence built in… It ain’t conducive to self-love even without conditioning.”

 

They press a kiss to Sam’s shoulder, and Sam sinks his fingers into Bucky’s plush hip, _I’m here, I’m here._

 

“So I grew up thinking I had this evil inside me, right? All my life I had people usin’ slurs and making me feel dirty, so I came into myself thinking I was already tainted by the Devil’s unholy mouth. And I figured, you know, everyone already thinks people like me are downright evil, what’s wrong with having fun with it?”

 

“Bear in mind this was illegal, darlin’, talk about reckless fuckin’ gays. So I fucked men, and men fucked me, and I looked at women and thought they were beautiful, sure, all dames are fuckin’ stunning, but none of them looked half as good as the men at those bars, in that half-light. And then I went to war. And I fucked men, there, too, ‘cept I did it with shakin’ hands and bombs to set the tone, and then I died.”

 

“And then I woke up under Hydra, again, like when I’d been tortured, Zola starin’ at me with these creepy fuckin’ eyes, injecting me with some shit.”

They take a trembling breath, press gentle kisses to Sam’s fingertips.

 

“Saying I’d become Inhuman, though not as in as many words, ‘cause half of the creep is never tellin’ your victim what’s actually happened, and turns out I went and got me some wings; too late to save my left arm, but not too late to smash him right into the ground and crush his skull in my shiny new fist.”

 

Sam watches as Bucky visibly reels, trying to get their brain back to himself, strokes softly over their skull and hums in agreement, because this whole thing is sickening, but he doesn’t want Bucky to filter this out, wants them to be able to speak, like they let Sam speak.

 

“Got fucked up for a while,” they say, voice gone hoarse, “torture and conditioning and blood on my hands. Then Steve happened. And you with him. And... I came back. I found you.”

 

Sam smiles. “You found me.”

 

“Best thing I could ever fucking find,” Bucky says, too fucking sincere, “so much better’n the trauma.”

 

Sam laughs into the sunlight filtering through the curtains, sending Bucky’s dark feathers into relief, and they flutter as they laugh, dainty and gentle and fucking beautiful.

 

“God, I love you.”

 

Bucky lets out a choked noise, and kisses him, warm and deep and smooth, “love you, too. Love you most.”

 

+++

 

It’s not sexual.

 

Sam has been insisting this for hours, glaring at Bucky when they’ve tried to make it into something for sex, hiding his own want under threats.

 

“It’s a massage,” he tells them, and Bucky moans under his hands, voice going raw and broken up. “So you don’t fuck up your back when you’re flying. Not because I want to touch you everywhere.”

 

“But you do,” they point out, and Sam jabs them in the lower back as a power move. It backfires when, instead of feigning hurt, they just make a weak whimper.

 

Sam is so utterly fucked. He’d thought this wanting would finish when they finally hooked up and got together. The fact it’s gotten worse is nothing but a violent act of transphobia.

 

It’s nice, sat on Bucky like this, thighs over their soft back, pressed into their doughy hips. Their wings are laid out either side of them, long and dark and brushing the couch, even though they’d shoved it out the way for space.

 

It’s nicer, when he’s pressing his knuckles into their skin, feeling the pressure ease out of them, the aches they’d told him about. Sam’s sure a professional could do it better, could fix it properly, but Bucky had pouted and whined and promised a blowjob, and Sam’s not a superhero. He only has so much willpower.

 

They look so beautiful like this, hair in their eyes, eyes closed and soft, metal hand clenching and unclenching while the flesh one moves back to try and touch Sam.

 

“Remember when you tried to claim touch starvation?” Sam asks, and Bucky lets out a huff.

 

“Before I moved in with you,” they say, as if it was a decision they’d both made together, as opposed to Bucky just. Being there, suddenly. “I hadn’t touched anyone or had anyone touch me out of kindness for seventy years. I held the kittens and cuddled them when I was volunteering, but… No human touch. Not out of kindness and compassion.”

 

Sam’s heart breaks, and he distracts himself from it with massaging out the knots in their lower back, shuffling back to sit on their thighs.

 

“Then you were there, and Steve, and Pegs, and… Nat, you know, just. But, before that, I was… I needed... “

 

“Goodness,” Sam says, swallowing, “something grounding.”

 

“Yeah,” they say, sounding so relieved that Sam gets it, understands deeply what it feels like to want just the feel of skin on skin, “yeah, something grounding.”

 

Their wings softly beat against the ground for a moment, and they don’t have to speak aloud for Sam to hear the pun.

 

He punishes them with a hip squeeze.

 

+++

 

Faber’s got a backpack, which is something Sam never thought he’d have to say, but he is dating the worst person alive, and so he lives with this pain like a second skin.

 

“I got them a papoose,” Bucky tells him, mouth full of overly-sugary cereal Sam bought special, “they like that, too, but their little backpack helps on trips out.”

 

Sam has kept hush on Bucky going out with them, because every time he thinks about Bucky’s huge, hulking figure accompanied by a kitten on a leash he becomes another man entirely. A weaker man.

 

“And, also,” they say, swallowing such a huge amount of food that it makes Sam’s jaw ache in sympathy, “I thought it be nice when we go flying, you know.”

 

Sam nods, and then freezes. “We?”

 

“Well, yeah,” Bucky cocks their head. They look confused, and it looks just a little silly, eyebrows smudged from sleeping with makeup on. “You wanna fly with me, right? I mean, if you don’t, that’s fine, but I just thought, since… I dunno.”

 

“With… you?” Sam asks, because it just. Is not going in. Does not compute.

 

Bucky looks concerned. “Are you okay?”

 

“Yes,” Sam says and is thinking _no, what the fuck, who, what, when, why, I don’t understand,_ “completely alright.”

 

“So you want to fly, right?” They ask, like Sam understands what any of this _means_. It’s so fucking early. He should still be asleep. “I mean, I got the suit made for you, Stark owed me a favor, and-!”

 

The chair Bucky had previously been sat on topples over, and Sam kisses them soundly on the mouth. His brain isn’t working, head gone fuzzy, just with the thought. Flying. Again, for real, for him.

 

“My EXO suit? You fixed my EXO suit?” His voice is breathless, and he sounds a little like he’s just tipped over the edge, but Bucky’s looking at him like he hung the fucking moon and stars.

 

“Uh, yes? It’s been a work in progress for a while, y’know, I’ve been skyping with Stark and going over to the tower to make sure it’s right. The military still has your original, but… I thought, y’know, it might… Be fun. Or good, whatever.”

 

Sam’s stomach is fluttering with excitement. “Where is it?”

 

Bucky goes pink, and tries to avoid Sam’s eyes.

 

“Buck?”

 

They swallow, hands on Sam’s hips, “hall closet. I… had it delivered last night. Thought you might want to go for a fly today.”

 

Sam stops breathing. For a second, for just a moment, he can almost feel the air flowing under him, the heat of the pack attached to his spine, the metal wings shifting with every twist.

 

“Please,” Sam says, “Bucky, please. Go fix up Faber. I… Please?”

 

Bucky kisses him before they scramble off, and Sam sits against the kitchen cupboards and wonders, throat aching, how his life got this good.

 

+++

 

The drive to the meadow out of New York is spent mostly with Faber on his lap, Bucky driving, and staving off the want to give them road head out of thanks.

 

Not responsible, Sam decides, even if it would be sort of cool.

 

The wings are barely four feet from him, in a special case in the back of the car, coated in velvet. Sam doesn’t know how to handle the proximity to them.

 

He thinks of Riley, and flying, and night-patrols and kissing in the dark and the mess tent, hands joining under the table for fleeting seconds, passing a note. Dates in the cover of darkness, of flames and yelling and laughter, of healing and burning and falling, falling, falling.

 

He doesn’t know whether to be queasy from excitement or fear, but he’s feeling on edge regardless.

 

Bucky straps Faber to their chest with gentle hands, and Faber leans up to sniff their chin and lick them on the face. “Yeah, I know, we’re gonna fly, little one.”

 

Sam pops the boot, and takes a moment just to stare at the box before he slides his hands over it, opens it. His fingers are trembling.

 

They’re beautiful, is the first thing he thinks. Silver-blue, polished and finely made, light and powerful. Nothing like the military-made ones, with their crooked wings and the hefty weight of them that he always had to adjust to not having when he landed. It looks like the seamless extension of his body.

 

Like what Bucky’s wings would look like if they were metallic like his arm.

 

“Oh,” he breathes, and Bucky presses a hand to his hip, “oh, oh.”

 

Bucky straps them onto him, hands so soft on his shoulders, and Sam stares into nothing and tries to keep breathing, keep breathing, keep breathing.

 

“You pull this to fly,” they’re telling him, but it’s like he’s hearing them through a tunnel, “slight movements change your trajectory. Pressing this ejects a parachute. Extra power, here, and they’ll let you hover if you just- yeah, your arms like that, good, yes.”

 

Sam catches sight of himself in the wingmirror of the car, and it’s like seeing himself five years ago; squarer jaw and a flatter chest, but such a whiplash of emotion that it makes his chest tighten.

 

 _Riley_ , he thinks, _watch this, sweetheart._

 

Taking off is the same rush it always had been before. It’s lightness in his gut and the feeling of warmth flowing in his chest, of twisting around and watching metal streak across his periphery.

 

The pack is fast, sleek, and there’s none of the mechanical clanking Sam remembers. Only the sound of recalibration and soft beeping noises every time he gains an extra ten feet.

 

“Catch up, Barnes,” he calls, and Bucky flies out of nowhere to flick him with a wing. Faber makes a soft mewl of excitement and licks at Sam’s hand when they get in close enough.

 

“You like it?” Sam can barely hear them over the roar of the wind, of the methodical beeping of the wings, of Bucky’s own wings beating.

Sam watches Bucky arc through the sky, Faber’s head visible when they turn just so, and thinks _yeah_ , _yeah, I do._

Turns out kissing is even better a hundred feet up.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

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